Isolation and Identification of E.coli O157:H7 Strain from local Meat in Ninavah Province

The research is conducted with the aim to investigate the strains of E.coli O157: H7 bacteria among E.coli isolates which is contaminated the local meat in Mosul, as it is being one of the common causes of food poisoning. The results showed that most of the studied meat samples have been contaminated with E.coli bacteria and the number of colonies of bacteria varied depending on the type of meat samples, although the proportion of contamination (100%) in minced meat (80%) in beef and less in lamb (76 %). Serotyping test showed that the strain O157: H7 also has been different rates among different types of meat, as follow: (32%) for each of the samples of beef and minced meat, while (24%) in lamb. The results of the sensitivity test for a range of antibiotics showed that the strain O157: H7 had a high resistance to the studied antibiotics in general, and its resistance was (100%) for each of the Rifampin (RA), Cephalexin (CL) and Cefixime (CFM) for all types of meat. The sensitivity to the antibiotics also varied according to source of isolate, in which the highest sensitivity in all studied meat samples were for Amikacin, ciprofioxacin and Chloramphenicol, as (87.5%) in minced meat sample, (83.4%) in lamb samples, while (75%) in beef samples. the percentage of the total resistance of strain O157: H7 to studied antibiotics also differed by type of meat, which is (67.5%) equally in both beef and minced meat samples while (65%) for lamb samples.